Commuters wait to board a ferry going to the East Bay from the Port of San Francisco on Friday, Oct. 18, 2013. The Bart strike that went into place last night forced many Bay Area residents to find an alternate way of commuting.

Photo: James Tensuan, SFC

Commuters wait to board a ferry going to the East Bay from the Port...

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With the BART transit system on strike, traffic is backed up for blocks on Battery Street leading to an artery of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge during the evening commute Friday, Oct. 18, 2013, in San Francisco. San Francisco Bay Area rapid transit workers are on strike for the second time since July, scrambling the morning commute for hundreds of thousands of workers who were up before dawn to clog highways, swarm buses and shiver on ferry decks as they found alternative ways to the office. About 400,000 riders take BART every weekday on the nation's fifth-largest commuter rail system. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Photo: Eric Risberg, Associated Press

With the BART transit system on strike, traffic is backed up for...

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Transit workers and supporters picket in solidarity at the Lake Merritt BART station in Oakland, CA Friday, October 18, 2013.
Bay Area Transit workers went on strike shutting down train service after BART management and union leaders with Bay the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 and the SEIU Local 1021failed to reach a contract agreement.

Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle

Transit workers and supporters picket in solidarity at the Lake...

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A sign is poosted on the entrance to the Embarcadero BART station during the first day of the BART strike in San Francisco, Calif., Friday, Oct. 18, 2013.

Photo: Nicole Fruge, The Chronicle

A sign is poosted on the entrance to the Embarcadero BART station...

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The doors locked at the Lake Merritt BART station in Oakland, Calif. on Friday Oct. 18, 2012. After contract talks broke down between BART management and the unions, workers went on strike at 12 am Friday morning and BART train service has come to a stop system wide.

In many metropolitan areas, a prohibition on strikes by transit workers - similar to the constraints on police and firefighters - might seem excessive and unfair. After all, a transit strike in some cities can be a manageable inconvenience for most people and businesses.

It's different in the Bay Area.

Public policy made it so.

This region did not just build Bay Area Rapid Transit and a web of bus and light-rail systems as an alternative to people driving in cars. It purposely designates public transportation as a desired way of life. It steers development toward transit-rich centers, and showers it with subsidies. It severely restricts parking in new housing and office complexes. This region, and indeed state law, aggressively discourages suburban housing tracts where cars are necessities.

Freeway capacities are intentionally suppressed because of the existence of mass transit. The $6 billion-plus new eastern span of the Bay Bridge did not include a single extra lane? Why? This region is supposed to be losing its asphalt dependence.

All of these policies are prudent in an age when global warming is the planet's premier challenge and creating livable density is the imperative for a region facing an unrelenting population growth that is straining its resources and capacity.

These are all worthy goals, based on sound principles.

Yet all of these hard-fought, well-intentioned efforts become futile if BART or AC Transit - the pillars of a promise of a transit-first policy - become disabled by natural or human forces.

Suddenly, the very people who bought into this sustainable vision are left with no way to get from here to there.

They deserve better.

They deserve assurances from the progressive politicians who are telling them they don't really need a car that policymakers will do everything within their power to ensure the trains and buses will run as promised.

They need to know that essential means essential.

The right of a transit-workers union to strike may be justifiable in some areas. In the Bay Area, where a transit-first policy guides all, the loss of BART or AC Transit (Muni strikes are illegal) is simply untenable. Other cities with no-transit-strike laws include New York, Chicago, Boston and Washington, D.C.

State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, has been contemplating legislation that would ban strikes by transit workers in California. His effort has received a grassroots push from Steve Glazer, a Democrat and longtime confidant of Gov. Jerry Brown. Glazer, an Orinda councilman running for the state Assembly, has been passing out flyers at BART stations urging passengers to join the cause.

It's generally believed that no such antistrike law would go anywhere in a California Legislature so deeply beholden to public-employee unions. But the legislators who are rightly pushing for transit-oriented policies should ask themselves: What good are such efforts if people don't have absolute confidence in the availability of these systems when they need them to get to work, school, shopping or other activities?

Along those lines, state Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar (Los Angeles County), has been asking a very good question: What about that no-strike clause in the existing BART workers' contracts?

The unions' argument has been that such clauses expired with the end of the contracts this summer. But BART extended all the other elements of the contract - wage scales, benefits, job protections, work rules, etc. - while the two sides remained in negotiation. Is it really fair to taxpayers and riders to allow only some elements of the contract - those most favorable to workers - to extend past the deadline?

Huff has introduced SB423 to compel BART unions to honor the no-strike clause in their existing contracts.

"In addition to the economic hardship, a strike would mean that students and teachers may not be able to attend their classes, and public safety personnel could be impaired in their ability to provide protection around the Bay Area," Huff and other GOP legislators said in a recent letter to Brown.

In reality, Huff and his Republican colleagues have no chance of persuading the Democratic governor to call an emergency session to stop a BART strike.

But the unions should beware the public outrage. If the California Legislature won't act, it's not hard to imagine an initiative that would strip transit workers of their right to strike.

Californians need to decide whether mass transportation truly is essential to our communities. If it is, it must keep rolling by any means humanly possible.

The New York experience: When the Big Apple said, 'Enough!'

1966: The transit strike

A 12-day strike began on New Year's Day. It was the first strike against the New York City Transit Authority. The strike halted all subway and bus service in the city. The strike was a turning point for the mayoralty of John V. Lindsay, who had taken a tougher position on public-employee unions than his predecessor, Robert Wagner. The settlement raised wages from $3.18 to $4.14 an hour, plus pension benefits and other union gains.

1967: The backlash

The 1966 transit strike was a major rallying point behind the Taylor Law, named after labor researcher George W. Taylor, which severely curtailed the ability of public employees to strike in the state. It took effect on Sept. 1, 1967. It made work stoppages punishable with fines and jail time. Curiously, among the critics of the Taylor Law are antitax advocates who dislike the provisions that allow labor contracts to be extended indefinitely in the absence of new agreements.

2005: More transit labor strife

Millions of commuters were affected when a transit strike was called during the holiday season in open defiance of the Taylor Law. It lasted just two days but resulted in the jailing of a local labor president and a $2.5 million fine against the union.